


All Alone

by voidify



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: F/M, Shotgun Wedding, anatole is the WORST u guys, based on the book rather than any adaptation, but ive tagged great comet too bc she EXISTS in great comet so it works, no beta we die like soldiers at the battle of borodino, this has a hopeful ending tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24181450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidify/pseuds/voidify
Summary: The kiss of goodbye, the “I’ll be back, my love, and take you back to Russia to live in luxury, as soon as my commision is done”, seemed convincing enough at the time, convincing enough to silence all protest in Franciszka’s mind. But when the day of her son’s birth came and the father was nowhere to be seen, the illusion shattered. Anatole was never coming back.(The story of a character who Tolstoy never gave a name.)
Relationships: Anatole Vasilyevich Kuragin/Anatole Vasilyevich Kuragin's Wife
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	All Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise, I’m still alive! And I’ve been reading War and Peace during quarantine, and now I’ve written a drabble full of run-on sentences about the wife who Anatole abandoned in Poland! The book says slightly more about her than Great Comet does (in volume 2 part 5 chapter 6, if anyone cares), but it’s still only like 3 sentences, and her story is honestly kind of heartbreaking when you think about it but Tolstoy never elaborated. So I've taken that upon myself. Enjoy

Franciszka knew her husband was never coming back. Of course, she hadn’t been thinking of that when he arrived. She hadn’t been thinking of anything in the future at all, in fact, when that charming Russian soldier from the camp next village over had spotted her, and with his charming words in his charming accent had charmed her into a position so compromising that when her father had wandered into the barn he had grabbed the rifle and told the soldier that it was marriage or death. That arrival had been mortifying at the time, but now, in hindsight, she was rather glad of it; had her father never found out, and the regiment simply left without a trace, then there would have been no excuse when little Krzysztof came along nine months later.

The kiss of goodbye, the “I’ll be back, my love, and take you back to Russia to live in luxury, as soon as my commision is done”, seemed convincing enough at the time, convincing enough to silence all protest in Franciszka’s mind, but her telling herself the lie didn’t make it true. She had, in fact, overheard the bargain: that her father would keep rumours constrained and allow the soldier to live as a bachelor back home in peace, in exchange for the wedding and the promise of a tidy sum. She didn’t want to believe it at the time— she’d only heard fragments, perhaps it wasn’t what it seemed— but when the day of Krzysztof’s birth came and his father was nowhere to be seen, the illusion shattered. Anatole was never coming back.

She told people she was a widow. It wasn’t far from the truth, she reasoned. And it was better for them to think that the man who married her and fathered her child had been killed by the French before he got the chance to return, than to know that he was a rake and seducer and she was the kind of foolish, immoral woman who would fall for the tactics of that kind of man. There was always a distant, distant hope— _what if he does return after all?_ — which kept her from remarrying all those years, but this hope was always faint, futile, unconvincing.

The rumours never reached her, of course, of the Rostov affair— far too many miles separated her from Moscow. But had she heard, it would not have come as a surprise.

Krzysztof was four years old when a letter came to finally confirm what Franciszka had been saying to the village folk all this time. The letter’s author, one Count Bezukhov, broke the news with irreproachable tact, surrounding the fact of the matter with sweet, useless condolences, his words never letting on for a second that Franciszka had been a secret to all but a few. There was something to be gleaned from the omissions, though. The insistence on _Princess Kuragin_ , no forename, could be dismissed as only an act of formality and respect— but then there was how the written address assumed she lived in the same town where the regiment had been stationed— and then there was how the source was not a military official, but a civilian with some unclear connection to the family— and then how it had been months since lines of post to the area were reestablished, and yet she was only hearing of this now… 

Franciszka did not cry when faced with the contents of this letter. She felt nothing. Except, perhaps, relief. No longer was she the abandoned wife of an honourless man. She was free, and she was still young. Perhaps she could build a life on truth this time around.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t what any of you subscribed for, but better some fic than no fic! Kudos are great, comments are even better! I have a whole headcanon for the second last paragraph btw, if anyone asks I _will_ explain it


End file.
